William Thomas Cain/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama will be getting out of Washington for the next three days, but it won't be for a little R&R.

With the economy foundering and Republicans taking potshots at his time in office, the president is traveling by bus to Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois in hopes of reconnecting with voters who helped him win those states in 2008.

The White House is leaving nothing to chance with the election less than 15 months away and polls showing Obama's approval rating consistently under 50 percent. In fact, a new Gallup poll released over the weekend showed just 39 percent approve of the job the president is doing, compared to 54 percent who disapproved -- a testimony to how worried Americans are about the economy.

However, the president can take solace in the fact that the public's contempt for Congress is even greater, and no Republican yet has shown -- at least in surveys -- that he or she can defeat the incumbent at this point.

It's believed that Obama will continue to seize on a strategy borrowed from the late President Harry S. Truman in which he blames Capitol Hill lawmakers for the logjam in Washington, and for preventing his administration from passing meaningful legislation to create jobs.